Category: Conflict Competence

Words are words, right? Wouldn’t you assume that using words was a skill transferable from one career to another? With words, I manage conflict and write. Yet, switching from Conflict Manager to writer… Read more Updating a useful metaphor →

Rob Ford, 1969-2016 I wrote a post nominating Rob Ford as a guru during the height of the wreckage he wrought at Toronto City Hall. Rob Ford’s leadership offers all kinds of lessons, so that post still applies, and I repost it now in his memory. Perhaps it applies south of the Canadian border as well, to another constituency of angry, alienated voters.

What is it about regret? Regret has quite the reputation. Dictionaries shove regret in with remorse, apology and disappointment. For years I accepted this connotation and have been regret avoidant, determined to live without… Read more Does regret deserve another chance? →

Is peace imaginable even though it isn’t yet within reach? Is there a vision of what the other side of our current age of turbulence might look like? The entwined German and Israeli flag lapel… Read more Is peace a reward for patience? →

“This little guy will save your life.” Between diagnosis and my first mastectomy, my partner Decker put his trust in a ten-week-old puppy named Trail to keep me alive. How’d that go? Well,… Read more Trust the tail, the truth is there →